MESA 2016 in Boston

We are very excited about the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting in Boston this year, and the Fares Center is taking an active part in this celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the Association.  We look forward to connecting with all our friends.

One of the highlights of the conference is a screening of a debate that Professor Leila Fawaz organized in 1986 between the then giants of the field: Bernard Lewis and Edward Said. Professor Fawaz, founding director of the Fares Center, is also a former president of MESA and editor of its International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

The Fares Center is also hosting the following events on Saturday 19 November. We hope to see many of you there:

• 10 a.m.: Screening of the Lewis-Said debate co-organized with MESA.  The transcript of the debate is available online and so are numerous articles that followed the event including exchanges by both Said and Lewis.
• 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies MENA Business History Project – a meeting in conjunction held in Brandeis (3) an opportunity to meet other scholars and researchers interested in the Fares Center’s Business History Project led by Prof. Ibrahim Warde.
• 2 p.m. Session 4469 A panel on The Future of Iraq: Lessons of Past Policies with the participation of Fletcher PhD students and Doctoral Fellows. Organizer: Brooke Fisher (Fares Center); Discussant: Nadim Shehadi, Tufts; Satgin Hamrah (Tufts): The Iran-Iraq War: Evolution, Framing and Proxy Wars; Shahla Al Kli (Fletcher) – The Implicit State of the Kurdistan Region: Path Toward Tacit Acceptance by the Inter-state System; Avner Golov (Fletcher) – Deterrence During the Gulf War of 1991.
• 4 p.m.-6 p.m. Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies Reception in Vineyard (4). Please join us for drinks and canapés and an opportunity to catch up on the Center’s plans and activities.

In addition, Jean-Louis Romanet Perroux, Fares Center Doctoral Fellow, is organizing the following roundtable, also on Saturday 19 November:

• 8 a.m. Session 4572 Perspectives on State Formation and Nation Building in Post-Gadhafi Libya: International Influence and Domestic Challenges Organizer: Jean-Louis Romanet Perroux; Chair/Discussant: Jacob Mundy, Colgate; Kumru Toktamis, Pratt Inst-(Re-) entrenchments in Libya; Haala Hweio, Northern Illinois U-The role of Libyan women in the state building process: opportunities and challenges; Irene Costantini, U York-When state formation meets statebuilding: external actors and the Libyan transition; Jean-Louis Romanet Perroux, Brandeis-Challenges and failures of the military intervention and state-building efforts in Libya.

Fares Center Affiliated Faculty, Tufts Professor Amahl Bishara, is organizing the following roundtable:

• 4-5.45 p.m. Session 4562 Anthropology, Ethics, and Political Engagement on Palestine/ Israel Organizer: Amahl Bishara Chair: Fida Adely, Georgetown; Suad Joseph, UC Davis Amahl Bishara, Tufts; Sa’ed Atshan, Swarthmore.

On Sunday Nadim Shehadi will also participate in:

• 10-11.45 Session 4375 The Shi’a of Lebanon: New Approaches to History, Politics, and Religion Organizers: Mara Leichtman, Michigan State, Rola El-Husseini, Graduate Center, CUNY; Chair: Nadim Shehadi, Tufts; Discussant: Augustus Richard Norton, Boston U; Nabil Hage Ali, Georgetown, Reconceptualizing Islam in 1970s Shī`ī Lebanon: the “men of mosques” Moulouk Berry, American U; Dubai Divorce in Lebanese Muslim Shi`i jurisprudence: a reform law?; Linda Sayed, Michigan State-Narrating history: Hizbullah’s efforts to inscribe time and place for the Shi`a of Lebanon; Bashir Saade, U Edinburgh- Hizbullah’s Ashura: identity, ethics, and the problem of the past; Eric Lob, Florida International- The export of Iran’s development model to Lebanon: the case of Jihād Al-Bināʾ.

From the MESA newsletter: “On Saturday morning MESA, in conjunction with the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, will present members with a blast from the past; we will open a time capsule dating from the 20th anniversary meeting, also in Boston, in 1986. We will screen the only surviving copy (slightly damaged) of the storied encounter between scholars and media pundits organized by Leila Fawaz. Bernard Lewis, Edward Said, Leon Wieseltier (The New Republic) and Christopher Hitchens (The Nation) take us back in time and we can see how much or how little things have changed. Immediately after the screening, Roger Owen (Harvard) and Nadim Shehadi (Tufts) will reflect on the state of the discipline and the research agenda of the next decades in the face of the disintegration of the twentieth century order.”

We very much look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events.